‘Viscerally terrifying’: writers on their scariest movie moments ever

For Halloween, Guardian writers look back at their biggest movie nightmares, from The Omen to It FollowsThere are major spoilers aheadDario Argento’s equally gorgeous and grotesque Suspiria is here to cure anybody of their scary-movie snobbery. In this masterpiece, Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) is a graceful and wide-eyed American who shows up at the Tanz Academy, an elite ballet school in the shadows of the Black Forest. Whoever dreamed up this august institution, with its sumptuous art nouveau decor and gaudily vivid hues, may as well have written the Wes Anderson playbook. Young women float by in gauzy get-ups and then, one by one, they disappear. The creepy-crawly atmosphere has Suzy on edge from the jump – and interludes with a Dr Feelgood and a case of maggots falling from the ceiling do little to calm her nerves. In the film’s thrilling climax, a terrified Suzy works her way down a secret corridor and finds the building’s inner sanctum, where she faces off with a coven of witche